End of an era for psychiatric facility

For the first time in 160 years, an imposing building which dominates Killarney, Co Kerry, and which once had more than 1,000 residents, was unoccupied last night.

The final group of seven patients yesterday left one of the country’s oldest psychiatric institutions, St Finan’s Hospital, amid hopes that traditional ways of dealing with, and attitudes towards, mental illness are also very much in the past.

The huge Victorian-era building on 30 acres overlooks Fitzgerald Stadium and has commanding views of the surrounding lakes and mountains.